AntennaAlign

Aim directional antennas for Meshtastic and other radio links. Use your camera to point at the target, check terrain and line of sight, and save targets.

Aim an antenna exactly where it needs to go.

AntennaAlign shows you where to point, on a map and through your camera, so you can align a dish, Yagi or point-to-point radio without guesswork. It's a handy companion for mesh and LoRa networks, where a well-aimed directional antenna and a clear path make the difference between a dropped link and a solid one.

ALIGN WITH AUGMENTED REALITY • Open the camera view and a target marker appears over the real horizon • Clear on-screen guidance: turn left or right, tilt up or down, until it reads ON TARGET • A green terrain outline with shaded ridgelines is drawn over the camera image, so you can see the hills between you and the target, out to around 100 km • Instantly see when the target sits behind terrain • Take a screenshot of the view to keep a record of your setup

PLAN ON THE MAP • Tap the map to set a target, or set your own origin by hand if GPS isn't available • Instant distance, bearing and tilt angle, using ground elevation at both ends • Set your antenna height, the target's antenna height and the link frequency

CHECK THE PATH • A terrain profile between you and the target • Line of sight and first Fresnel zone clearance, including earth curvature and refraction (k-factor) • A clear verdict (path clear, marginal or blocked) and where the worst point is • Set the link frequency to match your radio, for example 868 or 915 MHz for LoRa, 2.4 or 5.8 GHz for Wi-Fi links

SCAN FOR NEARBY CELL SITES (AUSTRALIA, CANADA, NEW ZEALAND, UK AND USA) • Hold up your camera to see floating labels over nearby cell sites, or switch to your own saved targets • Each cell site shows its carrier and distance, plus 4G or 5G and licensed bands (such as B28, B66 or n78) where known • Labels shade from green when close to red at the edge of your scan distance, which you can set from 1 to 100 km • Faded, dashed labels are hidden behind terrain, so you can see which sites have a clear path • Save a screenshot of the scan to your photos • Australia and Canada use regulator licence records (ACMA and ISED), so a site may be listed even if its equipment has since changed • UK, New Zealand and most US sites come from crowdsourced OpenCelliD data, so their positions are estimates and are marked ≈

SAVE YOUR TARGETS • Save a target with its antenna height and frequency, and reopen it any time • Add a target by typing in its coordinates

CALIBRATE FOR YOUR PHONE • Sync the heading against a landmark you can see • Compass and tilt offsets, magnetic declination and camera field of view settings

BUILT FOR THE FIELD • Works on iPhone and iPad • Light and dark appearance • The camera views remind you when your position has been set by hand rather than by GPS • No account, no ads and no tracking

Good to know: terrain and map data are downloaded as you use the app, so you need a data connection. Terrain data is bare-earth at about 90 m resolution, so trees and buildings are not included. Metal can throw off a phone's compass, so calibrate a few metres away from steel masts and brackets.